Home Squad Update: Can Customers Help Us Design Out Repairs?

Since we revealed our Home Squad tests we've been inundated with questions. What are the business benefits? What do customers think? How will we negotiate complex landlord and tenant regulation?

As with a lot of Lab work the simple answer is: we don't know. We help people come up with new ideas for products and services backward, dealing with the tough issues last.

Most new products will fail anyway - so breaking them down into safe to fail 'tests' is a cost effective way of trying new things. This minimises fear of big failure or reputational damage.

Jason Holder heads up our Home Squad and is asking us:

What if we attempted to design out the top ten most recurrent repairs?

What if we gave basic 'training' to customers to build their confidence in tackling day to day repairs?

On Friday we took the test to customers. We think it's vital that any service is tested with potential customers at the earliest stage possible. Even very raw feedback is useful in building up a new service.

The great news was that customers loved the idea of a "Home Engineer" who worked with them to demonstrate how their home could work for them.